Search

This report examines the trends in the utilization of psychiatric inpatient care for the period 1984-1996, when the implementation of the psychiatric reform programme was initiated in Greece. Admissions in public mental hospitals declined by 7.2%. However discharges have been increased by 30.6% with a parallel decrease of the length of stay by 53.7% followed by an increase in discharges of patients diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia and affective psychoses by 61.1% and 123.8% respectively. In the private sector a remarkable reduction in both admissions and discharges was noticed. Admissions in psychiatric departments of general hospitals for the same years have been increased by 1054.1%. It seems that the recent deinstitutionalization process resulted in increasing trends in the discharges of patients suffering from psychoses. Additionally, a substantial increase in the number of extramural psychiatric services and rehabilitation places between 1994-1996 was observed. The demand for the mental health care services expressed as the urbanization index was found to be related with mental health professionals and the extramural units ratios. The higher degree of urbanism is, the greater the number of extramural services exist. The models explained variance reached 50.6%.

Background: In this paper the geographical distribution of discharge rates of psychiatric patients in Greece, nationwide, is shown., Method: Utilization rates are estimated by the number of discharged patients from all public and private mental hospitals for the period 1978-1993., Results: During this period six prefectures were repeatedly found to exhibit the highest discharge rates for both sexes. Five out of those six areas are mountainous, socially isolated and of a lower level of socioeconomic development, lacking mental health services. The correlation coefficients for the annual mean age-standardized discharge rates of psychiatric patients and the corresponding General Index of Development score of each area were found to be statistically significant for all diagnoses, and for schizophrenic psychoses taken separately, in each prefecture for each of those years (1978-1993)., Conclusions: It seems that the higher the hospital treated psychiatric morbidity is, the lower is the level of general socioeconomic development of the area. It is possible that families from socially disadvantaged areas, with limited support resources, are unable to avoid the hospitalization of their mentally ill members.